Across Europe, large trailers displaying adverts have been rolling into capital cities. Yet these are by no means the usual pandemic publicity for the release of a new album or the next blockbuster. These billboards, which have been roaming the campuses of universities in Paris, Brussels and London, promote RichMeetBeautiful, a Norwegian firm which encourages students to “improve your lifestyle – go out with a sugar daddy” in addition to promises of “romantic passion and no student loans.”
‘Sugaring’ sites such as RichMeetBeautiful and SeekingArrangement.com are no ordinary dating platforms. The self-proclaimed “sugar daddy and sugar baby dating site”, RichMeetBeautiful, aims to match a ‘Sugarbaby’ – “a beautiful young lady who is worth her weight in gold” – with a respective, wealthy Sugardaddy. In this relationship “she seeks to please her Sugardaddy by being available for him, sweetening his spare time and sharing his luxury lifestyle.”
Billboards from RichMeetBeautiful’s student campaign have since been seized by police in Paris and been banned by Belgium’s advertising watchdog. While legislation appears to have made their mind up, a pertinent question remains: can you be a feminist and also a ‘Sugarbaby’?
Deputy Mayor of Paris, Helène Bidard, has branded the adverts “an offence against women”, yet the founder of SeekingArrangement, Brandon Wade, argues that the origins of the site had feminism at the forefront. Wade suggested that “SeekingArrangement.com was created to empower women” in a 2012 statement for National Women’s Month. “A sugar baby is an empowered woman who is tired of dating losers that contribute nothing to her life. She has made a commitment to only date men who will help her to achieve her goals.”
In an interview with FRANCE 24’s Observers magazine, a former student who used the site has spoken candidly about how being “desperate for money” ultimately led her to signing up: “I could get two weeks’ wages in two hours”, she stated. The anonymous contributor branded her use of the site “irresponsible”, however she suggested her experience was one of power, not submission. “I felt that while men do take advantage of women, I was also taking advantage of them most of the time. I would think, ‘What an idiot, you’re paying me that much for just 10 minutes? More fool you.’”
Agony aunt for The Independent, Virginia Ironside, found nothing “morally wrong” with the site. “Women are much more pragmatic about sex, less soppy than men. If you’re a hard-up single mum and there was somebody you found not too unattractive and don’t go any further than you want to, I can’t see anything intrinsically wrong.”
With RichMeetBeautiful’s ambition to increase its UK membership by 100,000, and its advertisements towards students still parading around London university campuses such as LSE and Kings College London, will students in the UK’s most expensive city – and 17th most expensive in the world – be coerced into registering?
SeekingArrangement guarantees its members an average of £2000 per month in allowances. With the average UK debt upon graduation reaching £50,000 (The Guardian), ‘sugaring’ is perhaps a fairly straightforward way for students to fund their tuition – and fast. It appears that UK students have taken note: SeekingArrangement revealed that a quarter of a million UK students were registered on the site in 2016, a 40% increase in comparison to the previous year (The Independent).
But will these students be cashing in on a legal prostitution loophole?
“Prostitution is black and white; it’s just an exchange of sex for money,” says Angela Jacob Bermudo, public-relations manager for SeekingArrangement. “On SeekingArrangement, people are coming to find their ideal relationship. It’s about the connection. These men are shelling out $3,000 a month for a sugar baby. That’s not something that a man is going to spend for a simple, one-night engagement.”
Members of such sites may come away with more than just a pretty penny, says Brandon Wade. He told The Tab that students also look for future job prospects: “At a time when graduates are guaranteed debt rather than a well-paying job, or even employment for that matter, Sugar Daddies are sought out for opportunity and not just financial stability.”
The concept of being a ‘sugar baby’ remains a hotly contested issue: some see it as a feminist handling of power and advantage, whilst others render it a blatant exploitation of the financially vulnerable.